The positive outcome of philosophyDietzgen, Joseph
Philosophy
The positive outcome of philosophy
Dietzgen, Joseph
Knowledge, Theory of; Logic; Philosophy
Of course, the identification of the universe with the religious God is
only a comparison, and comparisons are lame. Still we may compare the
sun with an eternal lamp or the moon with a candle, or the German prime
minister with a butler.
Logic shall teach you that everything which may be distinguished by the
faculty of understanding is of the same kind, everything is of common
clay, but the whole is sublimely elevated above all that is commonplace.
Mere frivolous atheism, as created by the free-thinkers, is not
sufficient. A bare denial of God always creates some other idol worship.
The positive understanding of the divine world truth is an indispensable
requirement for the radical extermination of all idol worship.
Logic must begin with the sublime, infinite, absolute. All logical,
consistent or interconnected thinking must take its departure from it.
The so-called scientific research after temporal causes, after the egg
from which the chicken was hatched, after the hen from which the egg
came, after the kindred organisms which developed the hen by natural
selection and adaption according to Darwin, this is a very valuable
research without which we can never understand the world process. But
nevertheless, such research must not satisfy the thinking man. Logic
demands from everybody that he or she should search for the highest, for
the cause of all causes. Whoever feels the desire to bring logical order
into his consciousness, must know that the finite and infinite, the
relative and the absolute, the special truths and the one general truth,
are contained in one another.
Logical thought as demanded by science means nothing but to be aware of
the final cause, the absolute foundation of all thought. This foundation
is the universe, an attribute of which is the external and internal
human head. The thousand year old dispute between the materialists and
the idealists turns on the question whether the spirit is material or
the world spiritual. Our answer is plain and clear: They both belong
together, they together make up the one thing, the thing of all things.
Mind and matter are two attributes of the same substance. They may be
compared the same as fish and flesh, the former being called very
appropriately by some African tribes "water flesh." In this way, matter
and mind are two kinds of meat of a different and yet of the same
nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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